6.) Less Student tickets. (Not sure what the supply and demand looks like?)

7.) Obviously won't happen, but alcohol in stadium would help.

While I know some of these things aren't popular for some of you old timers, I am just speaking for some of the pet peeves of my generation that I've heard around the country. We don't like watching 11 AM CST kicks that no one cares about. We don't care about games vs Akron (that we should win by 30, but don't), and we definitely don't care about a noon game vs Akron that you can't buy alcohol at.

I would be down for this trade: the AD can take away 2 football student seats for every 1 they add to the lower bowl in basketball. They'd actually make money off that, and it would even out the supply and demand a good amount.

...for University of Michigan undergarduates, do we have to allow not only alcohol sales, but underage alcohol sales?

I don't wish to be too harsh; the drinking age was 18 when I matriculated. Seems to me that a worthy campus protest might be to lower the drinking age. But maybe before that happens, your cohort will succeed in legalizing marijuana. That will no doubt help with everything.

General Admission sucks. If the goal was to get students into their seats on time, it failed. Miserably. It didn't have the intended effect, and it seems to have pissed all the students off. I know I'd be pissed off about it if I had student season tickets. I'll never defend GA; I never have.

"Lower prices" is not the answer, if prices are such that now, students regularly show up late or not at all, after having paid whatever they pay. That tells me (tells the world and more important the marketplace) that student tickets are not dear enough. Students who own those tickets treat them like they had little value. Look around the Stadium, where civilian season ticket holders have paid full price plus a seat license and they are in their seats, on time, every week, whether it is Eastern, Western, or Appalachian.

I am not going to debate the quality of the home schedule. I'd like it if our home schedule had Notre Dame, Stanford and Oregon every year. But it doesn't, and while the quality of the home schedule may have depressed overall demand, you don't see alumni and PSD-payers showing up en masse in the 2nd Quarter, or missing 15% of the games as a group. The pathetic student showing in Michigan Stadium can't be blamed on the schedule.

I continue to assert that Stadium gate security is the worst bottleneck for students. (And many others.) The entry gate (Gate 10) where most students enter after having walked down Hoover to Greene, is atrocious.

Why not cut down on the number of student tickets? Every seat that doesn't go to a student, will go to a civilian who will pay more, plus a PSD. Sell student tickets to the hard-core interested ones. I don't mind if people think, "I'd rather watch on a 70" High-def tv..." (Those poor suffering, impoverished students; I guess a Pell grant can buy a nice tv!) Free-thinking 'Muricans have a right to do as they please. But if you'd rather stay at a party on Hill Street and watch on a high-def tv than use the ticket that is burning a hole in your pocket, I see no reason to sell you a cut-rate seat inside the Stadium. Your ticket didn't cost enough, if that is how you treat it.

So; I have a mixture of sympathy and contempt for the students. The ones who show up ought to be treated better. Better gate access; no more GA. The ones who don't show up ought to be weeded out of the ticket market.

I don't know why a guy with an MBA and highfalutin' corporate experience like DB can't recognize that this is largely a question of insufficient demand for the available product, both in terms of kids with tix not bothering to show up, and now with slacking season ticket purchases. All you need to do is reduce the allotment for the students to weed out the kids who don't really care, and give those tix over to the general population of those who do care. You wouldn't need to fuck around with GA or anything else to make that happen.

They could sell all student tickets at the standard ticket prices and provide a rebate for the difference when a ticket is used, regardless who buys/uses it. This would encourage students to show up or at least sell their ticket to someone else.

I think this would provide a major incentive to show up or sell the tickets.

Students who don't want to attend / can't attend would love to be able to sell their ticket and recoup some of the cost. But the AD has made that too hard. That needs to be fixed. We have the technology.

...at reduced student prices, and then make it real easy for those students to turn them around on the open market, for market prices?

We have student sections for a reason. A couple of reasons, actually. First, there are a lot of students who want to go and who will show up on time, etc. The Athletic Department wants to give them a deal, to do just that. Second, we all want a student section in the Stadium. Yell, make noise, get rowdy, show a Maize bloc, etc. It is part of the spectacle.

If students want to make a case that they should be able to buy single-game tickets, and not be cornered into purchasing season tickets, I'd be willing to listen. But student tickets, sold at a discount, should not be resold on the open market. That is an insult to people who paid full-fare plus a PSD.

Being on a Thanksgiving weekend now probably hurts too. That's one of the best memories and probably prompts people to go to more games if the offender that one. With so many students out of town that weekend, that memory is no longer instilled.

The Michgian Daily wrote an interesting article on the general admission policy dated 4 September 2013. See http://www.michigandaily.com/sports/09-michigan-football-student-tickets-fbs-database-general-admission-6

There was a handful of items in the article that stood out:

1. Michigan had the second most expensive student ticket in the country behind Oregon. That said, all student tickets are subsidized, i.e., essentially half price.

2. Prior to the General Admission policy, the Athletic Department tried outreach and a new loyalty program along with the H.A.I.L. application. These efforts didn't work.

3. In 2011, student no shows averaged 4,376 per game. In 2011, that number rose to 5,434.

4. Having a full student section is important to the university because football games are its primary public showcase.

5. Less than half the schools in FBS don't put a cap on student tickets with Michigan being one of them.

6. Michigan will make less money off student tickets in 2013 than in 2012, even with the price increase. The regents’ plan to upgrade the University recreational sports facilities and the Michigan Union requires the use of $1.8 million of Athletic-Department revenue. The Athletic Department says the entire increase in student ticket prices will go toward that project. With roughly 20,000 season-ticket holders, that covers about $1.05 million.

Since 2,000 fewer students bought tickets this season, Michigan loses about $390,000 in revenue.

7. Many schools charge students athletic fees in as part of tuition to support the athletic department in addition to ticket sales. Michigan doesn't do this.

8. Michigan was the last school in the Big Ten to use a pure assigned-seating policy, and just eight out of 129 schools — none in the Big Ten — currently use an assigned-seating policy. Twelve other schools employ a hybrid model, partially using assigned seating. Wisconsin, for example, has a general-admission policy for each section, but allows students to pre-select a section so they can sit with friends.

9. Nebraska switched to general-admission in 2008, with one tweak: students are assigned to sections of the stadium, and seniors get to select a section first.

“It gives upperclassmen priority in their seating location, and allows students the freedom to sit with large groups of friends at our games,” said Keith Mann, Nebraska’s assistant athletic director for media relations.

Mann said the policy has improved attendance and involvement.

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For people complaining about the schedule, keep in mind that the 2014 non-conference opponents were put in place prior to the Big Ten changing the conference portion of the schedule with the realignment into different divisions. Michigan State, for example, would have been a home game instead of a road contest.

From 2015 to 2018, there are no MAC teams on the non-conference schedule. In fact, the next MAC team on it is Ball State in 2020. Here's what we're looking at post-2014 for non-conference home games:

2015 - Oregon State, UNLV, Brigham Young

2016 - Hawaii, Central Florida (UCF was in BCS bowl game last year), Colorado. Five home conference games include Wisconsin and Penn State.

2017 - Cincinnati, Air Force. Four home conference games include Michigan State and Ohio State.

2018 - Arkansas, SMU, one game TBD. Five home conference games include Nebraska, Wisconsin and Penn State.